Sunday night’s self-destruction against the Cavs was about as bad of a loss as the Knicks could have imagined, given that they had a chance to pull within two games of the Atlanta Hawks, who had lost earlier in the day.

Well, to be fair, it wasn’t totally a self-destruction. Jarrett Jack was phenomenal for Cleveland on offense, repeatedly burning Raymond Felton, and Luol Deng did a terrific job on Carmelo Anthony, keeping the ball out of the NBA’s second-leading scorer on multiple possessions.

But this still goes down as a bad, bad loss for the Knicks, whose eight-game winning streak came to a halt.

It’s too bad we will not have a race for the eighth spot in the East. It seems that way, though you cannot understate just how bad the Hawks are — and how capable they are of losing their three-game lead.

In the West, the Suns and Mavs are battling it out for the final playoff spot, and Phoenix gave itself a big boost Sunday by getting 61 bench points in a huge comeback victory over the Timberwolves. The Suns now have four winnable games to close out the month, then a very difficult April schedule.

Will they get in? And which low-seeded team will have the best chance of making some noise in the first round of the playoffs?